We’ve all seen some YouTube videos of people living in these gorgeous tiny homes, vans, boats or any other unthinkable place, and thought ourselves: maybe I could also live in a tiny place, maybe it would be convenient to live frugally and invest more in experiences than in material stuff. However, we finished watching the videos, maybe research a bit about tiny houses, how to build one or how much they cost, and then… continue living our regular lives.
If this sounds like you, don’t worry, we’ve all being there. After all, moving out from one home to another has never being an easy task. Even in the traditional sense, it has always being a long process involving finding the right property in the right location for a reasonable price, negotiating with the seller, going through all financing and paperwork process, packing and moving all your belongings…etc. This is usually a really hard and tedious process so people usually tend to avoid it. Even if some people may have the financial means for moving out to a nicer place, most of them tend to avoid it or postpone it either because it is hard or because all the emotional strings attached to a home.
What to do then?
So I guess the point I want to get across here is that you really need to have a clear vision, a clear reason on why you want to make a change in your current lifestyle. This vision, although might involve some practical reasons such as stop paying rent or mortgage, living more frugally or having the ability to take your home wherever you go, it will be way more powerful if it involves a more human approach. Thinking about it from a perspective on how you really want to live your live and in what or with whom you really want to spend your time with will give you the strength to keep moving forward towards your vision.
The reality is that among the way, some challenges will pop, most will be mental. You might think that the hardest part is finding a property where to park your tiny home or where to buy it from, however, the number one reason stopping most people to make a change is the lack of a clear intent. When you already took a clear decision, everything else falls in order. The harsh truth is…. we always got the time and money to make the things we value the most, that give us most pleasure or that we consider important. So in this sense, the first and most important step is to have a clear vision and intent.
First Steps towards buying the tiny house you always dreamed.
The next step is a little more practical.. To make a budget. What thing should you include in this budget? My recommendation on budgets is to be really precise, writing down what, where and when and how you are planning to spend in your daily life and what are the most resources you can assign to this particular endeavor. Be really honest and try to look all your current lifestyle practices. After you get a clear idea on how much are your savings or taken a personal loan and got the money in hand to buy your tiny house, the next step is…. not to buy a tiny house.
That’s right, you first need to know where are you going to place it as this may limit the size of the tiny house you are planning to get or it may involve some other restrictions. Have a quick conversation with your city housing officials on what is allowed or not, talk to other tiny house owners in your area or make a quick research online. You may be able to rent someone a small area of their property, or you may have to look for a property farther away from the city. Maybe you may need to look for a nice RV park instead and ask if they will allow you to park your tiny house. This might seem tedious, and it probably is, but it is a really important step to follow before considering any tiny home options.
Picking your first tiny House
After you have the money to purchase your tiny house and the place to park it, then comes the fun part, to hunt down for the best tiny house according to your needs. Do you need a full kitchen with a full fridge or just a compact kitchen will suffice. Do you need regular stairs to go upstairs or a simple ladder will do? Would you prefer to have 2 lofts as an extra study or sleep space? A full interior bathroom? How much storage space will you need? New and shiny tiny home or maybe a preowned one with some minor details? All these questions and more you will need to ask yourself in order to have a clear understanding on what will be your best choice for a tiny house. Please keep in mind that unless you build it yourself or hire a contractor to do so, which will be probably a bit more expensive and take a longer period of time, the perfect house doesn’t really exist. You need to maintain a flexible mind through this process and probably wouldn’t hurt if you kept a flexible mind through your life.
Finding the best option for a house will always be a daunting process and even more if this implies downsizing your belongings and your lifestyle in general. However, I truly believe that the way most people live their life currently is not sustainable in long term for our planet. As human beings we tend to lose focus on the important things of life and compensate them with other material possessions we don’t really need, hurting ourselves and others during this process. Gradually we need to downsize our lifestyles as a society and move towards more affordable human homes which contribute to focus more on our experiences with others and our overall happiness as human beings.